Grotta del Vento

About 200 million years ago, enormous quantities of shells, coral formations, fish skeletons, sand, slime and calcium carbonate, chemically precipitated through water evaporation, began to settle at the bottom of a sea which could correspond to the actual Tyrrhenian sea. This detritus, though varying in quantity and composition, kept accumulating, layer upon layer, for at least 170 million years, forming a mass thousands of metres thick. The great weight of such an accumulation, brought about the compression and the cementation of the various elements, slowly transforming them into limestone rock.

About 20 million years ago, strong thrusts (orogenic movements), linked to the movement of the earth's crust, caused the upheaval of this rocky body, the great pressure fracturing it enormously, causing it to emerge from the sea and to slowly form the mountains we see today.